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Australia to Austria, With An Eye on Athens, Allen Is On Triathlon’s Fast Track

Not quite a year after becoming a citizen of Austria, former Aussie Kate Allen nails down a big win at Ironman Austria to strengthen her resume and her case for a trip to the Olympics.

Kate Allen has rapidly become Austria’s bright hope in triathlon, regardless of the distance. Her win at this year’s Ironman Austria event catapulted the 33-year-old to the top of the women’s Ironman scene, but we might not see Allen compete over the Ironman distance again for a couple of years.

That’s because Allen, after achieving her main goal for 2003 – winning Ironman Austria – is setting her sights on her next challenge: representing her new country at the Olympic Games.

Allen only became an Austrian citizen a few days after her stellar performance in her debut Ironman at Klagenfurt last year. In that race she pushed Lori Bowden to the second fastest Ironman performance in history. Allen finished second in a blazing time of 8:58.

Allen arrived in Klagenfurt from her home in Innsbruck as the prohibitive race favorite, and as the featured member of the newly formed Ironman Austria team. Her face appeared everywhere leading up to the race – the event poster, the program, ads … you name it, Allen was on it!

It all marked the culmination of quite an athletic journey for Allen. A recreational athlete at best when she was growing up in Geelong, Australia, Allen didn’t get into the sport until she was 25.

While touring through Europe, she met Marcel Diechter at a pool in Kitzbuhl where Allen was working. She was there simply for a "fitness swim" – he was there training for his next triathlon. The two became a couple, and it didn’t take long for Allen to become a triathlete.

Allen has been living in Austria "on and off" since then. She and Diechter (who competed in his first Ironman in Austria this year, finishing in 9:17) were married four years ago, and continue to travel back to Australia every winter for three months of training and racing.

She has steadily improved, and now appears ready to take on the world’s best at any distance. Coming into Ironman Austria, Allen had already padded her resume with a win in the Melbourne Gatorade Series, and also posted wins at the Austrian Championships and the Triathlon Milano.

Add to that her impressive seventh place finish in Kona last year, and you have the makings of quite a triathlon star, but in her mind, she needed to win a big race to really put her career on the map.

She was determined to get that first "major" win at Ironman Austria.

"I put a lot of pressure on myself," she said. " I was totally focused on what I wanted to do, which was to win."

Her dramatic 8:54 clocking was well ahead of the rest of her closest competition in Klagenfurt – Italy’s Edith Niederfriniger and Wendy Ingraham. While the rest of the women were able to stay close during the bike, once she started running, Allen truly was in a class all by herself. Her 2:57:12 marathon split puts her in some pretty prestigious Ironman marathon running company: Lori Bowden, Paula Newby-Fraser, Erin Baker, Lisa Bentley and Heather Fuhr.

Even Allen was surprised at her performance.

"It was just a perfect day," Allen said. "Normally my run is like a ‘roller-coaster.’"

She attributes some of that improvement to her new coach, Marcus Schnitzer, who dramatically changed her training program this year.

"It was completely different training," she said, "I didn’t trust it, but it paid off!"

Now she’ll see if the training program will work well enough to get her to the World Championships in New Zealand this December. If she can gain enough World Cup points to make it to those championships, she will probably make it to the Olympics next summer in Athens, Greece.

Ironman fans would almost prefer to see Allen not make that goal – if she doesn’t qualify for New Zealand, we’ll get to see her compete in Kona in October.

Anyone who saw Allen’s amazing race in Klagenfurt this year is all too aware that the talented Aussie-turned-Austrian has what it takes to attain any of her sporting dreams … which most likely means she’s Olympic bound!

You may contact Kevin Mackinnon at Originally posted to ironmanlive.com on 07/18/2003 11:46am by Kevin Mackinnon.